Street shoot-out hits NJ mosque during prayers

JERSEY CITY (AP) — A New Jersey mosque packed with worshippers was riddled with bullets earlier this week when a man police say was fleeing an unrelated shoot-out nearby ran through the building.

About 200 people observing the holy month of Ramadan were gathered for prayers around midnight Monday at the Muslim Federation of New Jersey Mosque in Jersey City when gunfire erupted outside.

Police say several men were firing at a 23-year-old man who had been at a convenience store next to the mosque. The man ran through the mosque, attempting to escape, and several bullets were lodged in the exterior and interior walls of the mosque, as well as in cars parked out front, according to a police report.

The man was not connected to the mosque. No injuries were reported and no arrests had been made as of Wednesday afternoon.

“We don’t expect things like that at a mosque, or a temple, or a church; why we go to such places is to worship and to bring people together,” said mosque member Asfundyar Khankhell.

The largely Pakistani congregation was already in mourning after an 18-year-old mosque member was fatally shot on Friday running after a man who had snatched his brother’s cellphone. Police say Muhammad Choudhry was outside his family’s home chatting with one of his brothers around 3 a.m. when two men approached them and stole the cellphone.

The brothers had been up at that hour with the entire family in observance of Ramadan. Police say Choudhry and another brother were chasing after one of the assailants when the man turned and fired a shot. An 18-year-old Jersey City man has been arrested on murder and robbery charges in that case.

Muhammad’s brother, Aamir Choudhry, was visibly shaken as he spoke of how Monday’s burst of gunfire at the mosque had come so close on the heels of his brother’s violent death. He attended prayers at the mosque alone on Tuesday night, explaining that his parents had returned to Gojra, Pakistan, to bury their son.

“For our family, for my parents, this was like, our baby,” Choudhry said of his deceased brother.

The mosque is located on the cusp of the city’s rapidly gentrifying downtown, across the street from where a multi-story housing project sits side-by-side with a massive luxury condominium development, whose sales literature boasts spectacular views of the Manhattan skyline.

Mosque leader Arshad Chatha said the mosque had been in that location for more than 25 years without incident, until suddenly the community was hit with two violent incidents within days of one another.

Newly elected Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop echoed those words during a visit to the mosque Tuesday night, where he reassured worshippers and pledged to increase police presence.

“This is a community that’s relatively safe, a very peaceful community that hasn’t seen this type of crime in years upon years upon years,” Fulop said. “So, to have two incidents like this in such a short period of time is concerning.”